


A Different Life

by Sauronix



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Battle wounds, Explicit Language, Fluff, Kisses, M/M, Mild Gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-10
Updated: 2017-12-10
Packaged: 2019-02-12 21:01:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12968334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sauronix/pseuds/Sauronix
Summary: “I’d still know you.” Of that, he’s sure. Gladio watches Iggy work, aching to kiss his parted lips and drag his knuckles lightly, oh so lightly, over the stubble on his cheeks. Pulse racing, he says, unthinking, “I’d ask you on a date.”Iggy pauses, and Gladio sees his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows hard. When he finally looks up, his eyes are viridian in the light of the low-hanging sun. “A date?” he repeats.“Yeah, Iggy. A date. I’d see you walk into the cafe in your tailored suit, with a newspaper under your arm, and you’d get stuck in my head. I’d sit in that cafe every day, hoping to see you again."As Ignis tends to his wounds, Gladio asks him if he'd ever wondered what it would be like to live a normal life, free of duty. Written for the prompt "Battle Wounds" for Day Six of Gladnis Week.





	A Different Life

When they make it to their campsite a couple of hours before dusk, Iggy sets up his cooking table, unfolds a chair next to it, and spears Gladio with one of his no-nonsense looks. “Sit, please,” he says.

Gladio’s in no state to argue. Wearily, he settles into the chair, dull eyes watching as Noct and Prompto haul the tent out of the Regalia’s trunk just down the hill from where the haven is perched. The cloth he’s holding to his bicep is sopping with blood now—his own blood, thanks to voretooth claws he didn’t see coming until it was too late. As wounds go, it ain’t so bad. It’s clean, and a single talon got him instead of all four. It hurts like hell, and he bled all over the backseat of the car on the way here, but it’s not gonna kill him. They didn’t even bother with a potion.

Iggy sets their first aid kit on the table and opens it, examining its contents with a furrowed brow before he plucks out a package of antiseptic wipes, a travel-size tube of numbing cream, a spool of thick black thread, a needle, and a small pair of scissors. He places each of them on the table, in an orderly row.

“Prompto,” he says as the blond puts the tent down next to the fire pit. Further down the hill, Noct’s struggling with the cooking equipment. “Would you and Noct go gather some firewood, please? I’d like to get supper started as soon as I’m done with Gladio.”

“Sure thing,” Prompto says.

Noct drops off the cookware, and then he and Prompto head off into the forest, and Iggy turns his attention back to Gladio.

“I’m afraid this won’t be very pleasant,” he says as he tugs an antiseptic wipe out of the package.

Gladio grunts. “Not like I’ve never had stitches before.”

“All the same, a warning is fair.” Carefully, Iggy peels the blood-soaked cloth off Gladio’s arm and drops it on the table with a wet plop. “Hold still.”

Iggy wipes the crust of dried blood off Gladio’s arm with long, sure strokes, then mops up the blood still oozing from the wound. The antiseptic stings. Shit, does it ever. Gladio has to bite his lip to stop a groan of pain. But at least Iggy is efficient about it. He never draws medical shit out more than he has to, always refusing to coddle, even when Noct hollers that Iggy is _hurting_ him, for Shiva’s sake, or Prompto jokingly calls him a butcher. Iggy just does what he has to do, even if no one else likes it.

Gladio watches as Iggy squeezes a dollop of numbing cream onto his finger and bends to apply it to the wound. With the way he’s leaning over Gladio, the musk of his sweat is unmistakable, blending with the warm cedar cologne he put on this morning. It’s driving Gladio insane.

Maybe that ain’t such a bad thing. Better than dwelling on the throbbing heat of his rent flesh, and besides, wanting Iggy is nothing new to him. Gladio’s wanted him for years.

“I don’t have any ice, so I’m afraid we’ll have to make do with this,” Iggy says apologetically, glancing at Gladio with a smile before he returns his attention to the wound. If he noticed the way Gladio’s staring at him, he doesn’t say anything about it. “You’ll let me know if it becomes too much, won’t you?”

“Nah. Let’s just get this over with.”

“If you insist.” Iggy snips a length of thread off the spool and guides it through the eye of the needle, knotting one end. “I’ll try to be quick about it.”

Gladio smirks. “Thanks.”

After disinfecting the needle with an antiseptic wipe, Iggy pulls over another chair and unfolds it in front of Gladio. As he sits, leaning in for better access to the wound he’s about to sew shut, one leg nudges between Gladio’s thighs. Gladio’s heart leaps, and he’s pretty sure he lets out a shaky breath, but just like the staring, Iggy doesn’t seem to pay it any attention.

“I don’t say this often, but I wish you wouldn’t throw yourself in harm’s way for my sake,” Iggy murmurs. He glances once at Gladio’s face before he pushes the needle into Gladio’s skin, and not for the first time, Gladio’s grateful for Iggy’s steady, methodical way of working. “Your job is to protect Noct, not me. “

“Well, your job is to advise him, but I don’t see you backing down from a fight,” Gladio shoots back.

“My _job_ ,” Iggy says, tugging the needle until the knot at the end of the thread comes flush against Gladio’s skin, “is to guide and protect Noct. Fighting by his side is part and parcel of that duty.”

“Yeah, and you choose to do it.” Gladio looks at him, at the way his eyebrows tug together as he concentrates. “My duty is to protect Noct, but I wanna protect you, too. And Prompto.”

Iggy huffs, threading a second stitch through Gladio’s flesh. “Well, you needn’t be so gallant with me.”

Gladio can’t help grinning at that. Iggy doesn’t really _need_ his protection. Hell, he sometimes thinks Iggy would make a better Shield than him. Gladio’s got the muscle, but Iggy has willowy grace, and deadly speed, and a tactical brain that’s always four steps ahead of his opponents. Still, Gladio would never forgive himself if something happened to Iggy, something he could’ve prevented, so he stands between Iggy and danger whenever he can.

That ain’t gallant. That’s just loyalty.

That’s love.

Some mornings, when when he lies awake in his sleeping bag well before sunrise, listening to Iggy putter around their campsite, he wishes they could have different lives. Normal lives, mundane lives, lives they could live freely, without obligation or duty. Shit, he’s grateful for what he has. Serving as Noct’s Shield is an honour. It’s his gods-given mission. When it comes right down to it, he wouldn’t trade it for anything.

But there’s a world in his dreams where death isn’t always hanging over their heads. A world where he isn’t Shield, and Iggy isn’t Noct’s chamberlain.

“Hey,” Gladio says, wincing as Iggy pulls a little too hard on the thread. “You ever wonder what your life would be like if you weren’t Ignis Scientia? If you were just a normal person, free to do whatever you wanted?”

“I can’t say that I have,” Iggy says absently.

“Never?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Huh. Well, I have. Plenty of times. Usually when my dad was on my case about something and I thought he was being an asshole.” Gladio’s smile fades. He wishes his dad was here now, to give him advice, to tell him what to do. But he shakes it off, the way he’s always shaken it off, watching as Iggy’s nimble fingers tie a knot in the end of the thread. “If I wasn’t an Amicitia, I think I'd be a writer.”

Iggy squints, examining his handiwork. “A writer?”

“Yeah. I’d sit in one of those cafes near Mystic King’s Square with a notebook and a coffee.” He used to daydream about it all the time. Once, he even gave it a try on a rare night off, but a call from Cor nixed that five minutes after he sat down. “I’d people watch. Y’know, come up with stories about their lives. I’d write them into novels. Think they’d make movies about my books, Iggy?”

“Perhaps,” Iggy says. He takes another antiseptic wipe and gently dabs at the inflamed skin around Gladio’s suture. “It all depends on the quality of your writing.”

“Come on, Iggy, you really don’t think about it?”

“I haven’t the time to think about it.” Iggy glances at him, a smile tugging at his lips. “With your imagination, you could probably dream up a life _for_ me.”

“Maybe.” Gladio tips his head back, thinking, his eyes following a cottony tuft of cloud that drifts across the pinkening sky. “I think you’d be a librarian, or maybe a kindergarten teacher. You’re always running around after Noct, and you read a lot.”

Ignis raises an eyebrow. "Hardly. If I worked with children, I’d be climbing the walls within a week.” He sets the needle down and rummages in the first aid kit, reemerging with a roll of gauze. “I’d be a lawyer or an accountant, or perhaps a government official.”

“Seriously? A lawyer?”

Iggy taps him under the arm, and Gladio dutifully raises it so Iggy can wrap the gauze around his bicep. He works in silence for a moment before he says, “If you weren’t an Amicitia, we wouldn’t know each other. You wouldn’t know Noct or Prompto, or Iris or Talcott. Would it be worth giving all of us up for a different life?”

“I’d still know you.” Of that, he’s sure. Gladio watches Iggy work, aching to kiss his parted lips and drag his knuckles lightly, oh so lightly, over the stubble on his cheeks. Pulse racing, he says, unthinking, “I’d ask you on a date.”

Iggy pauses, and Gladio sees his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows hard. When he finally looks up, his eyes are viridian in the light of the low-hanging sun. “A date?” he repeats.

“Yeah, Iggy. A date.” Gladio licks his lips nervously. This ain’t exactly the same as laying his heart bare, but it’s close enough. Iggy will see his confession for what it is. “I’d see you walk into the cafe in your tailored suit, with a newspaper under your arm, and you’d get stuck in my head. I’d sit in that cafe every day, hoping to see you again. And when I finally did, I’d ask you out.”

Slowly, Iggy tucks the end of the gauze into the bandage, securing it in place. “Gladio…”

“Maybe lawyer Ignis would say no.”

“Well, that depends.” Iggy meets his gaze again, and the devilish twinkle in his eye makes Gladio’s heart beat just that little bit faster. “How would you woo me?”

“Well, as a writer, I’d write you poems. ‘Your lips are Diamond Dust, and I’m just a junkie looking for another hit.’”

Iggy laughs. “Are you comparing me to an illicit drug?”

“I’m flying by the seat of my pants, all right? I ain’t saying I’m the next Vibianus or anything.”

Iggy laughs again, and Gladio chuckles with him. It’s easy. Almost too easy. All these years, he’s lacked the courage to tell Iggy how he really feels, too scared to speak in case it changed their friendship for the worse. And there was Noct to think of. Even if Iggy shared his feelings, they couldn’t exactly go shirking their duty for the sake of romance.

But that was then.

Carefully, Gladio takes Iggy’s hand, stroking his thumb over bare knuckles. “Would you say yes?”

“Me?” Iggy murmurs. “Or the version of me in your alternate universe?”

Gladio shrugs. “Both. Either. I dunno.”

Iggy opens his mouth to speak, but then a loud laugh and a murmur of voices comes from the trees just beyond their haven—Prompto and Noct, returned from their errand. Sighing, Iggy releases Gladio’s hand and rises, moving to the table to put away their first aid supplies.

Gladio’s heart aches like someone’s just walked all over it, but he forces a smile to his face when Noct and Prompto clamber up onto the haven, a good haul of firewood clasped in their arms. They get the tent set up, and dinner ready, but Iggy doesn’t speak to him again except to make small talk as they eat. They fire up their phones for a few rounds of King’s Knight, but Gladio’s heart ain’t in it. He keeps glancing across the haven at Iggy, wishing he’d kept his goddamn mouth shut.

It’s a little after ten o’clock when Noct yawns and says he’s ready for bed. Saying goodnight, he and Prompto climb into the tent, zipping it closed behind them. Gladio stands at the edge of the haven with his arms crossed, watching daemonic indigo lights flicker behind the trees, as Iggy wipes down their dishes with a bowl of water and a damp cloth. He’s so focused on the darkness that he doesn’t realize Iggy’s come up behind him until a warm hand slides into his own.

“We were interrupted earlier,” Iggy murmurs. “I never gave you my answer.”

“Figured it was a no.”

Iggy makes a wordless sound and brings Gladio’s hand to his lips, grazing a kiss over his knuckles. “There is no universe in which I would say no.”

“What?” Gladio looks at Iggy, rendered stupid by the sight of those soft, full lips touching his skin.

“We can’t go on a conventional date,” Iggy says, “but perhaps we could steal a few minutes to ourselves and share a banana split at the next Crow’s Nest we come across.” He smiles against Gladio’s hand, and Gladio falls a little bit more helplessly in love with him. “After all, there have been worse dates.”

**Author's Note:**

> *staggers past the finish line, waving manuscript* I did it! Just in the nick of time! I haven't had the time to participate much in Gladnis Week, to my immense sadness, but I'm so glad I was able to churn this guy out. Thanks for reading, and I hope you guys enjoy! Any and all feedback is much appreciated.


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